General Anti Avoidance Rules (GAAR) will not catch multinationals

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General Anti Avoidance Rules offshore

General Anti Avoidance Rules (GAAR)

There is a common misperception that the new General Anti Avoidance Rules (GAAR) will force companies like Google, Facebook and Starbucks to pay more UK tax. It will do no such thing and it is not even aimed at them.

Playing Field

The problem that the UK Government has in this area is that it doesn’t control the playing field. Other countries can use whatever rate of Corporation tax that they like and the UK cannot do anything about it. They can’t tell Ireland, Luxembourg and Switzerland what Corporation Tax to set.

Maybe the EU could but remember that the EU has a common VAT rate – but Britain has a different one. This would certainly be brought up if Britain tried to introduce a standard rate of corporation tax across the EU.

Switzerland is not even in the EU anyway and neither are the Bahamas, Bermuda etc.

Loading Up Costs

In terms of General Anti Avoidance Rules (GAAR), it’s also up to companies in which countries they load up costs and in which countries they have low costs and high profits.

General Anti Avoidance Rules

General Anti Avoidance Rules affecting UK contractors

Those countries with low corporation tax rates lose out as the companies incur fewer costs there like opening factories or hiring people.

Those with higher rates of tax will ge the benefit of the companies loading up costs by running their operations there. Those countries will earn income tax and have fewer people claiming unemployment benefit.

Dice Loaded

It’s swings and roundabouts. Cameron is trying to load the dice so that the UK can get both jobs and the corporation tax. However, he can’t bring in many measures to do so. He would have to get international cooperation and that will prove very difficult to do with low tax countries like Ireland saying that their corporation tax rate of 12.5% was not negotiable even when they were being forced into a bailout.

Any multinational agreement on all of this is a long way off, if it happens at all. Why should countries not compete on tax rates as well as on everything else. Surely that’s the free market. Surely a Conservative would understand that. Why do they want or need General Anti Avoidance rules (GAAR)?

Isle of Man Umbrella Companies happy with Budget

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Isle of Man Umbrella Companies for contractors

Isle of Man Umbrella Companies

Isle of Man Umbrella Companies are happy with the latest budget.

The Chancellor took aim at tax avoidance in his budget today – especially offshore tax avoidance. However, the Isle of Man Umbrella Companies appear to have got away relatively lightly compared to Jersey and Guernsey.

The Chancellor has acted on the intermediaries tax loophole where UK companies avoid payroll tax by routing their payroll offshore in places like Jersey and Guernsey.

Isle of Man Umbrella Companies

Isle of Man Umbrella Companies for UK contractors

Often the temporary workers used by those UK companies didn’t even know it was happening. This is even though it could have led to them losing sick pay and maternity pay entitlement.

Illegal Schemes

However, these schemes are illegal in the Isle of Man and one company was fined for trying to operate one.

The Chancellor also said that he would work with the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey over disclosure. However, the former has been ahead of the game here and has worked closely with HMRC and the Government.

The people targeted are those who hide money in offshore bank accounts.  It’s not about contractors who use offshore umbrella companies.

The companies will feel that they got away relatively lightly.

Contractors can retain 85% of their income by using these companies. Many contractors are now doing so.

Here is one here:-

Compare the Umbrella

 

Offshore Umbrella Companies Boosted by UK Government

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Offshore Umbrella Companies Boosted

Offshore Umbrella Companies Boosted

We have now got offshore umbrella companies boosted by the UK Government.

The UK Government is inadvertently boosting them by their attacks on freelancers’ use of Personal Service Companies. The UK Government appear to want freelancers to get out of Limited Companies and get into Umbrella Companies. The UK Government can then grab more income tax and National Insurance Contributions from them.

Although, to a certain extent they are managing to do this, more and more fish are escaping their nets and slipping into the offshore umbrella companies net. This means that the Government will get very little tax at all from them if any.

Legal Offshore Companies

Most of these schemes are completely legal. The freelancers’ money goes to the offshore umbrella company as an investment. They get back a loan in lieu of the investment. They use the investment as collateral.

One such scheme has the freelancer’s money paid as an investment. This is then invested in a broad spread of 150 telecoms companies. They insure the investment against loss. Therefore, as they insure the investment against loss the offshore umbrella company is able to loan money to the contractor in lieu of that investment.

When the contractor wants to cash in the investment he, or she, will get any profit from the investment in the telecoms companies. All they will pay is Capital Gains Tax on any profit they have made.

Conservative Party

Of course, this is all completely legal. The Conservative Government knows that as it was they, under Margaret Thatcher, who legalised it in 1979 within a month of coming to office. Perhaps it was payback time for their sponsors.

A number of Tory Grandees have used it successfully. They include David Cameron’s father Ian, Lord Astor his father-in-law, Lord Ashcroft the Conservative Party’s main donor and fundraiser. Of course, the Chancellor himself, George Osborne has a family trust of £4.5m offshore.

IT Contractors

Of course, these schemes were never meant for the likes of IT Contractors and other freelancers. However, they cannot just exclude IT Contractor from this tax avoidance gravy train. If they stopped it they would be cutting off their noses to spite their faces.

So, contractors are happy to see offshore umbrella companies boosted by the Government.

Check out our Which Umbrella Company guide and our Which Contractor Accountant guide.

Offshore Schemes have Government foaming at mouth

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Offshore Schemes for contractors

Offshore Schemes

The Government has fulminated about offshore schemes where big companies are able to avoid paying tax in the UK. David Cameron has criticised ‘clever accountants’ who set up these offshore schemes for their clients to avoid paying UK tax.

Margaret Hodge of the Public Accounts Committee has attacked the big Accountancy companies for setting up these schemes at a Public Enquiry.

However, one wonders who should be in front of this Public Enquiry, the big Accountancy companies or the Government. After all, it is the Government who are in charge of the law. The big Accountancy companies just follow the laws that the Government set up.

Offshore Schemes for UK contractors to save tax

Offshore Schemes for UK contractors to save tax

Thatcher Government

Perhaps the Committee should investigate members of the Thatcher Government. The Committee could ask them why one of the first pieces of legislation they put through in 1979 after being elected was to allow people to send money offshore without it being taxed. Why was that so urgent?

There’s a lot of talk also about trying to shame companies like Starbucks into paying more tax than they legally have to.

Perhaps they should put David Cameron in front of the Committee to ask him if he would hand over to HMRC a big chunk of his own inheritance which came from the offshore schemes set up by his father Ian, who was one of the early practitioners of such schemes.

George Osborne

Perhaps they can bring Chancellor George Osborne before the Committee. They could ask him if he would promise to that he and his family will pay not just the tax that they have to but the amount of tax that they would have had to do if their £4.5m family trust has been set up in the UK rather than set up offshore.

Contractor Tax Avoidance sches on Isle of Man

Contractor Tax Avoidance schemes

So, the problem for the Government is that these offshore schemes are mainly used by their supporters and backers. There’s not a huge amount of Labour backers with offshore trusts.

These offshore schemes are used by people like David Cameron’s father-in-law Lord Astor and the Conservative Party’s main sponsor and fundraiser Lord Ashcroft. However, it was Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Government who brought in the laws allowing people to send money offshore untaxed.

Multinational Companies

What they don’t appear to like is multinational companies getting a slice of what was set up just for the upper and business classes in Britain to avoid paying UK Tax. The upper and business classes in Britain have been taking advantage of this for more than 40 years. However, they are now outraged that companies like Starbucks, IBM, Google and Microsoft are using them.

What really annoys them is that freelancers, many of them in IT, are using offshore schemes to avoid UK tax. IT Contractors mainly come from the middle and working classes. They didn’t set these laws up for them.  So, will Cameron and Osborne change the laws which have helped their supporters and sponsors for many, many years – or is this just a knee jerk reaction to a media frenzy.

We shall see. For the moment these offshore schemes remain perfectly legal.

Facebook avoiding UK Tax

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Facebook

Facebook

Facebook are the latest company caught avoiding UK Tax. They made £840m in profits last year. However, they paid just £2.9m in tax – all of it in Ireland. Although they only hire 287 staff in Ireland all, of the advertising outside the USA they book to Facebook Ireland.

They book the profit to Ireland. However, they then move that money out of Ireland to the Cayman Islands and its Californian parent. The technique is called Double Irish. They charge the Irish company royalties for using the Facebook brand in much the same as Starbucks do. They moved £750m that way.

Advertising Revenues

Facebook then reported a loss of £15m loss in Ireland despite all the advertising revenues outside the US ending up there. This is even though 44% of Facebook’s revenues come into Ireland.

At least they gave Ireland £2.9m. They gave the UK just £238,000 in Corporation tax. Facebook say that they comply with all UK laws – and of course they do. They just know how to work the system.

It said that it picked Ireland as its European base because it was the “best location to hire staff with the right skills to run a multilingual hi-tech operation serving the whole of Europe”.

The low Corporation Tax of 12.5% and the ability to do be able to do a Double Irish, it seems, played no part in the decision to go there. Of course, Ireland didn’t get any great benefits from Facebook in terms of Company Tax. Although Facebook’s Irish staff pay income tax there.

UK Tax Avoidance

The Chancellor George Osborne has promised to do something about it. However, it will be difficult and he risks major companies pulling out of the UK. He is going to target high income earners in the UK who hide money overseas.

However, most of the schemes are completely legal. Neither the individuals or companies, like Facebook, are breaking any laws. It is legal tax avoidance rather than illegal tax evasion.

The big problem is with companies who charge other companies within the group royalty payments for using the brand name. They are perfectly entitled to do so. They are perfectly entitled to charge them anything they want for the use of it too.

Perhaps that is one area where the UK can legislate, i.e. to limit the amount that they can charge for using the brand name. Of course, those companies will then look for other costs that they can load up in the locations where they want to load up costs.

Office Holders Boost for Offshore Umbrella Companies

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Office Holders

Office Holders IR35 Legislation

The Chancellor has given Offshore Umbrella Companies a major boost by his new office holders changes to the IR35 legislation. The more that the Chancellor tries to move contractors out of Limited Companies and into Umbrella Companies the more contractors now approach offshore umbrella companies about operating through them. They have been thriving recently.

Of course, the Government would like to knock these out. However, this is proving difficult for them as the companies are not in their jurisdiction. Also the courts have ruled that the system that they use is perfectly legal.  This is where contractors are given loans rather than paid income.

PAYE Umbrella Companies

HMRC and the Government would like to see all freelancers in PAYE Umbrella Companies. They don’t want them in Limited Companies. They certainly don’t want them in offshore umbrella companies. However, their policies appear to be driving more and more contractors that way rather than becoming an effective employee of an onshore PAYE Umbrella Company.

IPSE Survey

There’s a lot to play for here. An IPSE survey showed that there were now 1.6m people who call themselves Freelancers in the UK. Only 200,000 of these are in Umbrella Companies. The Government take around £10,000 in tax and NICs more from an Umbrella Company contractor than a Limited Company contractor. There is a lot of money at stake for the Government. So, they want to herd as many contractors as possible out of Limited Companies and into Umbrella Companies.

However, if those contractors leave the onshore companies, and go offshore, the Government gets nothing at all in tax. They appear to be helpless to prevent this. This office holders legislation will cure nothing.

For a review of offshore umbrella companies see Offshore Umbrella Companies

Forced Disclosure for Isle of Man Umbrella Companies

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Forced Disclosure

Forced Disclosure

Forced disclosure is the latest Government tool against tax evasion.

The Government has just announced a new deal with the Isle of Man where the island will give the Government the names of UK citizens with offshore bank accounts. Forced disclosure is the latest in their war against tax avoiders. This has been whipped up by the media in the UK. Similar deals with Jersey and Guernsey are expected soon.

Said Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in an interview with The Times “Any jurisdiction that refuses to enter into one of these information disclosure agreements is taking a huge risk with their reputation. It’s the price of doing business”.

So, it looks as if the Isle of Man agreed voluntarily to a certain extent. Said Alexander “Every tax jurisdiction that once thought it could operate on the basis that it could be an offshore haven needs to think again. Everyone should pay their proper amount of tax.”

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man’s Chief Minister said “This decision is a well-considered next step in the island’s long-established policy of commitment to being at the forefront of tax transparency and international co-operation. It is logical for the Isle of Man to embrace new forms of tax co-operation with our largest trading partner, the UK”. So there you ar then.

So, what does that mean for contractors who are operating under offshore umbrella companies schemes there? Does forced disclosure mean that the game is up for them? Will those offshore umbrella companies have to shut down now?

Government Frustration

Far from it. Forced disclosure is more to do with tax evaders than tax avoiders. The Government’s frustration is because most of these schemes are legal under the laws of the UK. Therefore, it would be very hard for the Government to shut them down. Most of the companies in the Isle of Man already disclose this information anyway. They have nothing to hide if they are acting legally and the schemes are legal.

Government Frustration

As the Government can do little about it, what they are trying to do now, in frustration, is to scare contractors out of the offshore umbrella companies. They are doing this by forcing the Isle of Man to bring in disclosure rules to hand that information over to the UK Government. However, once the Government has that information they can’t use it to prosecute people who are operating within the law.